


Pulling The Thread

by Iwantthatcoat



Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga), Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Might change from gen to m/m, don’t know yet - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-11-24 03:30:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20900942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iwantthatcoat/pseuds/Iwantthatcoat
Summary: This is a fusion of Death Note and Sherlock. I have used the Death Note plotline, more or less, but there are a few major changes coming your way. Enjoy!





	1. Chapter 1

Light Yagami was bored.

Light Yagami was frequently bored, there was really nothing new about that— but with entrance exams a month away and his instructors lessening the workload so students could study…, well, Light Yagami was _extremely_ bored. And no amount of Wii target practice was going to help this time.

There was really no need to study. Light was first in his class, first in his school, currently first in all of Japan. But as he drifted through this world, scarcely needing to give it more than a passing thought to exceed every expectation, something was growing within him. A sense that this world was hateful. Was corrupted. Was...rotten to the core.

***

Ryuk, God of Death (or one of them, anyway) was bored. 

After countless centuries of taking human lives, it had all begun to feel meaningless. He looked listlessly around him at the other Shinigami, drinking, eating, gossiping, gambling. He ran a fingertip over one of the apples from the Human Realm they were playing for and sighed. Even human apples weren’t appealing, though they were old ones, rotting a bit. Tired and old, just like him. A ridiculous thing for a theoretically immortal being to feel, old. Still, nothing in this world seemed worth doing anymore. And it probably never had been. Or maybe it’s just that nothing happens in the Shinigami Realm.

He walked to the limits of his world and peered over the edge. Now the Human Realm— that had potential. He’d been there before, of course. But this time… this time he’d spice things up a bit. He took out his notebook and held it over the abyss, then released his grip and watched it spiral gently through the clouds. Making an announcement to the others, who scarcely gave his words a passing thought, he followed it downward.


	2. Chapter 2

On the morning he found the notebook, Light had almost walked right past it. The fact that the cover was written in English was definitely what had caught his eye. Who would own a notebook with English on it, right? He picked it up and started muttering to himself, “‘Death Note’. Well, it’s easy enough to figure out who it belongs to — someone with a dark sense of humor, obviously. Or maybe just with bad taste in music.” 

He thumbed through it in search of a name. Aside from several pages written in a strange-looking script—a list of some sort—it was blank. Light stared at it and tilted his head. The outside had every indication of being very old, and it was; I’d had it for centuries. I had two of them, actually, and the other one was even older. The inside was blank, though. Brand new. “The human whose name is written in the note shall die,” Light mocked, and laughed.

Light tossed it into his satchel and continued home. And I followed.

I didn’t meet him right away. I wanted to see what he would do all on his own. He’d figure it out, that I knew. But would he use it? And on who? School enemies? Academic rivals? Five days later, I decided to pay him a visit. Death gods can walk through walls easy as pie, so I decided to show up in his bedroom. I remember it like it was yesterday...

“You seem to like it?” I said.

He screamed in shock.

I suppose I do look kind of terrifying. Hanging out in the Shinigami Realm, you forget. Everyone looks pretty terrifying there, so we don’t tend to notice. Oh, and we don’t have mirrors. 

I was sneaking up on him, but I think I was the one who was the most surprised once he held the notebook facing me and flipped through the pages. The number of people he had written in five days was amazing! Fantastic! He looked down at the floor and waited patiently. It took me a while to realise what for. 

“I used the notebook knowing it belonged to a Shinigami. And now the Shinigami is here. What happens to me now?”

I don’t know where humans get these crazy ideas from. I’m not going to take anyone’s soul or whisk them off to the Shinigami Realm. I mean, there are consequences, sure, and some people believe that having a Shinigami following you is bad luck, but the only real consequence is that a human who uses the Death Note can’t go to heaven or hell. That’s all. And that’s right there in the book...no surprises. I mean there are little things like only someone who touches the notebook can see me, and if you give away the book you will lose all your memories of it. Not _all _your memories, just the ones about the notebook. Not a bad deal, really.

Then Light asked me why I chose him. Hah! As if I chose someone to find it! I told him he wasn’t chosen. Just lucky. It wasn’t because he was the smartest in all the land or anything like that. I dropped it down. He picked it up. He didn’t much like hearing this, and I don’t think he really believed me until I said I had written all the instructions in English because it was the most popular language in that world. That did it, I think. He sulked a bit. Then he stared right at me and asked why I dropped it, then. And I told him the truth. I was bored. He smiled. 

I looked at the notebook again...so many names!

“I was... bored too,” he said.“I didn’t believe it was real of course, but I decided why not try it. I’d need to find out if it worked right away, and it should be someone who was acceptable to kill. I turned on the television. There was a live news broadcast of a man who had killed some people and barricaded himself in a nursery school. I couldn’t believe my luck. They showed a photograph with his name beneath it. That’s all I needed— a perfectly-spelled name, and a face so as to not confuse identities, so I could…. Well… I was far from certain it would work, but I wrote it down, pictured his face clearly, and waited. After the required forty seconds had passed, nothing happened.”

“Huh?”

“Yeah, so I turned back to my books. I mean, who would expect it to really work, right? Ridiculous. And then the newscaster came back on and said the students and teachers were leaving the building. They thought it was suicide, but when the witnesses came out they said the gunman had collapsed! They concluded it had been a heart attack. Just like the notebook said would happen if I didn’t write in a cause of death. It could have been a coincidence, though, as my brother is always fond of saying,”The universe is rarely so lazy.” Still. I needed to test it some more to be certain. And I needed to test it on someone else who ought to die, whom I could observe. I had to wait.”

“Why wait?”

“I am an honors student. I needed to go to school, go about my normal routine.”

I nodded.

“Ryuk, you wouldn’t believe how many people I passed that day that I knew for certain the world would be better without.”

“I should have checked in on you sooner. That would have been fun to watch. Not the normal routine part. The other part.”

He smiled. “I found someone else soon enough.”

“Most people lack the courage to really put it to use. Did it bother you? Having killed two people?”

“For a moment, it actually did. But then I remembered...this world is a rotten mess. It really needs to be cleaned up. And I could actually do it. If I was brave. Then I realised... not only could I do it, but I was the only one who could. I’d change the world. There’s a red thread of evil running through the skein of life. I need to pull it.”

“Okay.”

“And the best part was...people will notice! The most vicious criminals in the world. I could specify a cause of death, but if they all died of a heart attack...how could anyone suspect anything short of divine retribution? Of righteous judgment? Neat, right? In time, no one will commit crimes anymore. I’ll expand it to people who are just immoral or who harass others as I give them a fatal illnesses or cause accidents. Eventually it will be noticed, even by the idiot masses, and they will realise they’ll die if they don’t change their ways. A new world, Ryuk! Inhabited only by good people!”

“You do something like that, the only one left with a bad personality will be you…”

“What do you mean?” He grinned. “I’m a serious, straight-A student… a model teenager… and… I… will reign over a new world.”

I was right. Humans were pretty damn fun.


	3. Chapter 3

“It’s gotta be the cops, right?”

“Nah, they couldn’t pull it off.”

“Maybe it’s some bunch of superheroes. You know, like X-Men”

“Well, see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah, and don’t forget to be good!”

“Hah! Yeah, I won’t!”

I watched Light break away from the group and head home. He went straight to his computer. People were noticing, alright, and there were websites popping up praising “Kira”. What an odd name to use.

“Obviously a corruption of ‘killer’, but what matters far more than the name is that I’m all over the Internet! Google it and there are tons of sites praising Kira for saving us from criminals. In public you'd say it’s wrong to kill anyone, but the façade is gone when you are anonymous. If your conscience is clear, you will support Kira. In private, at least. I wonder what stance newscasters are taking, having to have a more public presence.” He turned on the news.

“We are interrupting this program to bring you a live, globally-televised broadcast from Interpol with Japanese voice-over from interpreter Yosho Mari.”

Light leaned forward.

“I am Lind L. Tailor, commonly known as ‘L’— the sole person able to mobilise police in every country worldwide. Criminals have been the target of a killing spree which has turned into the biggest mass murder case in history. This monstrous crime must be stopped at all costs. ‘Kira’, as the perpetrator is commonly known, will be caught. I guarantee it.”

Light grabbed his notebook and held it close. “Moron! I’ve got this. And you don’t. This is the proof you need and not only don’t you have it, you don’t even suspect it exists.”

L continued to speak. “Kira, I think I’ve got a pretty good idea of why you're doing this. But what you are doing...is evil!”

“Me? Those who work against me, _they_ are the evil ones. Oh,_ L_. I’m _so_ disappointed. You were just too stupid. This could have been so interesting.” Light wrote Lind L. Tailor in large letters across an entire page of the notebook. He checked his watch and counted down the seconds as L continued to spout out something about a coordinated investigation. And then it was over. L collapsed onto his desk. Light laughed as two agents carried the man offscreen. But a voice continued to speak.

“Wow. I never really thought… Kira, you can actually kill people without any physical contact. Now that’s what I call impressive! I mean you'd have to, of course, but… well, some things you just have to see for yourself. Listen. You just killed Lind L. Tailor. And Lind L. Tailor was a condemned criminal scheduled for execution. But I am L. And I do exist. So come on. Kill me.”

Light stared at the screen.

“Go on. Off I pop!” The voice stopped for a moment, then resumed, even more arrogant than before. “I’m still here, Kira. Fit as a fiddle. What are you waiting for? Come on and kill me! Oh. That’s right. You can’t. Good to know. Good to know. And since you just told me something very useful, here’s a little something for you. Just to play fair. We said this was being broadcast worldwide. That part, might not have been entirely truthful. Actually, I lied. This was only broadcast in the Kanto region near Tokyo. I eventually would have had to broadcast this message to other areas, but I don’t need to now.” L’s voice dropped low. “I know where you are, Kira.”

I was impressed. I turned to see what Light would do next, but he just kept right on staring at the television.

“Your first victim was the nursery school hostage-taker. A local crime, you see. Don’t know who was next, and it doesn’t really matter. It was just a test anyway. I didn’t expect it to be quite so easy. It won’t be long before I send you to die. I’m very interested in how you actually do this, but...I guess I’ll have to find that out after I catch you.”

“He said he’d send me to die.” Light clicked the television off. “L. I’m going to find and dispose of you, if it’s the last thing I do! I’m…”

I thought it right before he said it, and it seemed to fit L just as much. The word was…

“...Righteous!”


	4. Chapter 4

“What’s up, Light? You look kinda down.”

“Just tired. And, waiting.”

“Go out. Do something.”

“Nah. You go outside and all it is is more and more stuff like this.” He threw down a tabloid. “Interpol's shadowy super-sleuth vs the telepathic mass-murderer!”

I picked up one of the discarded papers. “Well, this one says you’re both fake. Inventions of the police, so they can take out criminals without worrying about all the fuss of following the law…”

“Idiots.”

“If they are after you, can you afford to just...chill?”

“Yeah. I have a certain advantage.”

Oh? “Oh. Sure.”

A voice floated in from down the hallway. “Light! Dinner!”

Well, that was gonna be dull. I thought I’d wander a bit. Maybe see what L and company were up to. Can’t say I cared too much who won this battle, so long as it was entertaining. I headed toward the police headquarters. Maybe I’d grab me an apple while I was out.

I picked one off a fruit stand as I was headed down there. If anyone happened to be looking in the right spot, they’d see an apple rise out of the cart and float down the street. That is, until I tossed the whole thing in my mouth, which I will admit I did pretty quickly. Fresh apples. Delicious. 

I walked right through the wall and into a meeting.

“L wanted to know the times of death,” —a generic policeman.

“Sixty-eight percent died on a weekday, between 4 pm and 2 am. To break it down further, most of those were between 8 pm and midnight. On weekends, the pattern starts earlier...around 11 am,” — yet another generic policeman.

A more important one walked into the room. I could tell because they all stopped and looked at him. He nodded. “Good. Any tips?”

“We’ve received 3,029 phone calls. Most wanted to know if the broadcast was genuine and if L really exists. Fourteen claimed to know Kira, or to have seen him. Unlikely, but we took a full report. And…” This was the generic policeman with all the data, it seemed.

“Yes?”

“...And 21 people claimed to _be _ Kira. Their statements are on file.”

“Thank you.”

“Chief?”

“Yes, Matsuda?”

“There...has been a dramatic decrease in the crime rate the past few days.”

Hah! The room was so quiet you could hear an apple core drop.

“Well, that is to be expected, don’t you think?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply that it was a good—“

A tiny, wry smile spread slowly across the chief's face. “Never apologize for good observations, Matsuda. Anyone else? No? Well then, patch us through to L.”

Someone hit a button on a screen and an Old English style capital L appeared. A voice came from the speaker. “Judging by the times of the deaths, our suspect is a student. But there is one more thing I need you to investigate. Were the faces of the criminals broadcast? That is all for now.”

The screen went blank.

The chief looked around the room, making eye contact with every individual. “Those of you who didn’t work an all nighter yesterday, you will today. Everyone else, head home and get some rest.” He closed his eyes briefly, then looked again at his staff of hesitating officers. “I will as well,” he said.

Nothing interesting likely to happen now... just fielding calls from more people claiming to be a psychopath. Maybe dinner was over. I had to admit, I liked hanging out in Light’s room, listening to his plans. When I arrived, dinner hadn’t even started. Light’s mother and father sat at the table, glancing toward the door every few minutes. I amused myself by wandering around their kitchen, poking my head through the cabinets and the fridge. Nothing interesting. I don’t know what I had hoped to find. And then there was the sound of a key in a lock. Their guest. I made my way back to the dining room in time to see a man lean his umbrella against the wall and sigh as he turned around.

“Apologies, Mother, I hope it hasn’t gone cold. This case has everyone a bit...frazzled.” 

So that was Light’s advantage; his brother was the Detective Superintendent of the NPA.


End file.
